Teddy's Big Adventure
by Matrix Refugee
Summary: Alterate Universe: Teddy is lost. What will David do?
1. Part 1: Lost

TITLE: Teddy's Big Adventure, part 1 of 2  
  
AUTHOR: "Matrix Refugee"  
  
RATING: G (My first ever G-rate!)  
  
ARCHIVE: Now that ff.n is being a BEAST, yes!!! (Permission given already)  
  
FEEDBACK: Please, please, pretty please??  
  
SUMMARY: Teddy is lost. What will David do?  
  
DISCLAIMER: Nope, I don't own "A.I.", or else this would be a screen story for a one-hour DreamWorks TV special, maybe at Easter, on HBO.  
  
NOTES: I thought I'd lay off on the Joe fics for a while, give his circuits a rest. I have to admit, being a maverick, I don't particularly care much for teddy bears. But Teddy fuzzied himself around my mental block the way David (and especially a certain green-eyed silicon hottie) got around my mental block about robots. I got this idea while watching "Toy Story" and its sequel, and that gave me an idea for a totally innovative fic (for me): a Teddy fic (and one long enough to warrant chapters, no less!). Very Alternate Universe: David has been reunited with his family after the "Blue Fairy incident", timeframe might be a year or so after the action of Act II of the film. Lots and lots of warm fuzzies here (ergo: cynics be warned!), so I guess this makes it kind of a kids' story.  
  
  
Part One: Lost  
  
  
It started, as these things usually do, in a very small way. One Tuesday afternoon, Monica had taken Martin and David to the Haddonfield library, David carrying Teddy tucked under his arm.  
  
"Does he have to bring that fuzzball along?" Martin groaned as they piled into the car.  
  
"But Teddy's my friend," David said innocently.  
  
"The only kind of friend you'll ever have," Martin snipped.  
  
"Martin, stop that," Monica ordered, glancing at David in the rearview mirror, making sure he didn't seem too disturbed. Putting David in the back alone with Teddy was the only way she could keep the two brothers from squabbling (although Martin did most of the squabbling.).  
  
While Martin was looking for books on birds for his school science project and Monica browsed the new books, David sat, with Teddy at his side, amongst a group of kids in the main room of the children's department, listening while Miss Phyllicia, the assistant children's librarian, read aloud to them.  
  
Miss Phyllicia had found David a little unsettling at first, he moved so quietly and he had that odd, blank look to his big blue eyes. But he behaved the best of the group, listening with rapt attention, his eyes wide, hanging on every word. Of course he always had a dozen questions to ask afterward, but he asked them so politely. And he always helped her put the books away.  
  
This time, however, when David went up to her afterward to ask about one of today's stories, "The Ebony Horse", retold from 'The Arabian Nights', he left Teddy on the cushion where he had been sitting. At that moment, Martin came in, eyeing the kids in the children's room, spotting Teddy alone, no one taking any notice of him while David chattered away with a librarian, asking her silly questions.  
  
"What happened to the Ebony Horse after the prince married the princess?" David asked.  
  
"You know, I don't know, though I've wondered that myself," Miss Phyllicia said. "But I bet you could write a story about that yourself."  
  
David pondered this, then he smiled his little-boy smile. "Teddy could help me write it."  
  
"I bet he could. He's a good friend to you."  
  
At that moment, Martin moved in: now was his chance. He grabbed Teddy by the ear. Before Teddy could protest, Martin stuffed him under a low, soft armchair covered with red and purple upholstery.  
  
"Yes, he is," David said. He turned around, looking for his furry friend. "Where is Teddy?"  
  
Martin plopped himself down on the chair under which he'd hidden Teddy. "You lookin' for that fuzzball?"  
  
"I don't see Teddy," David said.  
  
"He must be right here somewhere," Miss Phyllicia said. To the few kids left in the story hour nook, she said, "Has anyone seen David's Teddy?"  
  
The kids shook their heads or rolled their eyes. "Nope." "I didn't see it." "It was on his pillow." "Dunno."  
  
Monica came in with a satchel of books."Is everything all right?" she asked.  
  
"Mommy, I can't find Teddy," David said, running up to her and taking her hand.  
  
She clasped his little hand. "He can't have gone far," she said, trying to encourage him.  
  
"Maybe he malfunctioned and started wandering around," Martin said. "Those things get funny when they need a new battery."  
  
"Martin, come help us look for Teddy," Monica said.  
  
Martin heaved himself up from the chair. "I think I saw him heading for the door."  
  
"He could be anywhere," Monica said. "Let's keep looking."  
  
The three of them went out. Under the chair, Teddy tried to wiggle free, but the chair was too low and his furry body too plump with stuffing for him to slip out easily. He lay still. Mommy and David would find him here when they had finished looking out there and came back here.  
  
Time passed. He didn't notice its passing except by his internal clock. He lay still and quiet. It wasn't much unlike the time Mommy had him out away inside her hatbox, except he'd been switched off then.  
  
But soon, some of the light that came to him through the gap under the chair faded and grew dim as the day passed into evening.  
  
He heard someone moving about, running a small vacuum nearby.  
  
A vacuum bot rolled under the chair and bumped up against Teddy. It whirred, moving about him and pushed at him, trying to dislodge him. But he was stuck fast. The bot beeped a warning.  
  
Someone came and moved the chair away. Teddy stood up.  
  
A man in blue coveralls stood over him. "Well, what have we here? How'd you get there, li'l fella?"  
  
"Martin put me here," Teddy replied.  
  
Biff, the building superintendant, had found lots of things in the children's room: hats, mittens, backpacks, but he didn't find Supertoys very often. He bent down and picked up the bear.  
  
"I'll just have to put you in the lost and found so Martin can come back tomorrow and find you," Biff said. And he carried Teddy to the main desk of the children's department.  
  
He set Teddy on the a shelf behind the desk, marked "Lost and Found" and went back to his work, making sure the vacuum bots did their job.  
  
For a while, Teddy sat there. Then he heard the man going out. Some of the lights shut off and the children's room went nearly dark, except for a few lights near the windows.  
  
Teddy of course did not feel lonely, but he knew David would need him. He looked down: it was not far to the floor.  
  
Teddy rocked himself back and forth and jumped down, landing on all four paws. He stood up, his old joints creaking in protest at the jolt. He sat back on his nicely padded bottom and reset himself. Then he got up and waddled out of the children's room, out to the main atrium, and then to the entryway.  
  
The sliding doors opened and he toddled out into the parking lot. He had an idea which way to go home since he'd seen the way they had travelled, watching the scenery flashed by as he'd sat in David's lap. Everything looked very different in the dark, but he had a simple sense of direction that helped him find hsi way around.  
  
He waddled out of the lot onto a sidewalk and headed up it, retracing the way to the library, only reversing the sequence.  
  
Cars on the street zoomed by him, but he took no notice: he had to get to David. He heard sounds coming from the houses and buildings he passed, but that meant nothing to him: he had to get home and be with David. He knew David was very much like him, very unlike Mommy and Daddy and Martin, but he knew that, like them, David had...feelings. And right now, David would be feeling very lonely.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
"Are you sure you didn't leave Teddy in the car?" Monica asked David as she tucked him in on the divan in her sewing room.  
  
"No, Mommy, I brought him with me into the library," David said.  
  
The dejection in his eyes nearly broke Monica's heart. She loked about the room for another toy that might distract him, but the few that were there weren't as dear to his little "heart" as Teddy. Those two were inseperable.  
  
"We'll go back to the library tomorrow, see if they found him," Monica promised.  
  
A smile lit his sad little face. "Thank you, Mommy," he said and hugged her.  
  
She kissed him and went out of the room.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Teddy kept walking through the night, untiring, though his joints creaked at every step. It rained for a little while, just enough to leave the road--and his fur--damp, but not enough to soak him.  
  
He heard voices and laughter up ahead, but he hardly took notice of it. These sounded like older children, and besides, David wouldn't be out this late.  
  
A group of older children, perhaps fifteen or so, not quite grown up, approached from the other direction. Most of them were girls, except for one boy, giggling and poking each other, the one boy looking slightly embarrassed. Teddy tried to wlk around them, but one of them grabbed him and picked him up.  
  
"Oh, isn't he cuuuuutte!" she squealed. She had yellow hair and blue eyes, but her face would have been prettier if she didn't have quite so much "make-up" on it. She squeezed him a little too hard.  
  
"Gladys, you say that about everything with fur on it that walks--or doesn't walk," the boy said.  
  
"Oh, you're just jealous, Ringo, because she never said it about you," said another girl with dark skin and black hair.  
  
"No, I'm not," Ringo said.  
  
"What are you going to do with that? He looks all wet," the girl with the black hair said.  
  
"Do? I'm not gonna do anything with him right now," Gladys said. "I'm just gonna take him home and dry him off for now."  
  
"Can you take me to David?" Teddy asked.  
  
"EEee!! It talks!" another girl with...green hair squealed, pretending to be scared.  
  
"Oh, that's creepy", said a fourth girl with nice brown hair a little like Mommy's.  
  
"Why, didn't you have one when you were little?" asked Gladys.  
  
"Yeah, but I bearly remember it; my half-brother broke it," said the girl with brown hair.  
  
"She BEAR-ly remembers it," said Ringo. "Get it?"  
  
"You want him?" Gladys said, holding Teddy out to the brown-haired girl.  
  
"Nah, you found him," said the brown-haired girl, stepping back. "Finder's keepers, right?"  
  
"I belong to David," Teddy said.  
  
"Who's David?" Gladys asked of no one in particular.  
  
"Can't be David Braddock, he HATES Mechas and things like that there," said the green-haired girl.  
  
"Guess you're coming home with me, little guy." Gladys said, holding Teddy to her chest as they headed on.  
  
"You must help me find David," Teddy said.  
  
"Does that thing have an off switch?" the girl with the brown hair asked.  
  
"I think it's on his bottom," Gladys said. She fumbled at Teddy's stump of a tail and found it.  
  
Everything went dark.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Next thing Teddy knew, he could see and hear again and his fur felt dry. He stretched his arms and legs and turned his head, making sure everything still worked.  
  
He looked about him. The room was dark, but he could make things out: he sat on top of a dresser amongst the clutter of a girl's room: make-up and nail polish bottles and fashion magazines and a scrapbook with a brightly colored cover crusted with. It was a long way down to the floor, so he realized he should stay put if he did not want to break.  
  
The girl named Gladys patted him on the head. "Hope you like it here," she said. He heard her get into bed and snuggle down under the covers.  
  
She was still a child, although she was starting to look like a grown lady, so Teddy was tempted to climb down and creep into the bed with her, but it was too far down. So he sat there, listening to the night sounds. The night passed slowly.  
  
The window slowly started to grow bright with light as the sun rose.  
  
"Gladys, it's morning!" a woman's voice called. Teddy guessed that must be Gladys's mommy.  
  
Gladys yawned, got up and got dressed. She took no notice of Teddy the whole time. As she grabbed an armload of schoolbooks and things to dump them into a bookbag, he spoke up.  
  
"Will you take me to David?"  
  
She just glanced at him and went out, nothing else.  
  
The sunlight shifted, the clear square of light moving along the rug and up the wall, then vanished as the sun moved around to the other side of the house.  
  
He heard the voice of a little girl chattering somewhere in the house. His ears pricked up. Of course this was not David's voice, but perhaps she knew David. There were some girls in the play-group Mommy and a few other ladies had put together. Maybe one of them, Sarah or Kellie lived here.  
  
At length, a girl came into the room, a short, round girl with red hair, maybe five or six. No, he didn't know this girl.  
  
"How'd you get here?" the little girl asked. She grabbed Teddy by the leg and hauled him off the dresser. She carried him upside down as she scurried out of the room.  
  
"Kara, can I play with this?" she asked, running into the family room of the house. A woman who looked a lot like Gladys came in from another room.  
  
"Effie, where did you get that?" she asked, puzzled. The little girl did not look anything like the woman, Kara. Teddy guessed the woman must be "babysitting" the girl.  
  
"I found him in Gladys's room," Effie said. "Can I play with him?"  
  
"I don't think you should, if he was in Gladys's room. You know she doesn't like it when you go in there and mess with her stuff," Kara said.  
  
"I wanna play with him!" Effie said, squeezing Tedy's leg.  
  
"You can't always do what you want. You can't always have things the way you want them."  
  
"But auntie Melissa lets me play with whatever I wanna!" Effie said, beginning to cry. Her grip on Teddy's leg grew tighter. He felt his conductors start to bend inside his leg.  
  
"Ouch," Teddy said.  
  
Kara came over and took hold of Effie's hand in one hand, holding Teddy's leg with the other. "You're squeezing too tight: you could break him."  
  
Effie let go, ran over to the couch and hid behind it, plunking herself down, making a lot of loud snuffly sounds like she was crying to get her own way.  
  
Kara turned Teddy over. "Now where did you come from?" she asked.  
  
"Gladys found me. I was trying to find David," Teddy said.  
  
"Well, I'm afraid I don't know anyone named David who'd be looking for you, so I'm afraid you'll have to stay here for now," Cara said, sitting Teddy down on the couch.  
  
Teddy said nothing to this, Perhaps this lady coud help him find David anyway. Perhaps she would take Effie and him someplace where David would be.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
After breakfast, after Martin had gone to shcool, and after David had helped Mommy wash the dishes, she drove him to the library.  
  
David went straight to the children's librarian's desk. "Have you seen Teddy?" he asked the librarian sitting behind it. "He got left here yesterday."  
  
"I don't really know, but let me check the lost and found," she said, turning to the shelf behind her. David stood on tiptoes, watching her.  
  
She took out a plump yellow stuffed duck. "Is this Teddy?" she asked.  
  
David frowned. "No, that's a duck," he said. "Teddy is a bear, he has brown fur."  
  
"Well, I'm sorry, dear, but I don't see a brown bear here," the librarian said, standing up.  
  
"Thank you," David said, the eager hopeful look in his eye fading. He went to join Mommy, who stood some short distance away. She put her arm about him.  
  
"We'll find Teddy somehow," she promised, leading him out, keeping him close.  
  
"Maybe Teddy went looking for me the way I went looking for the Blue Fairy," David said.  
  
It wasn't impossible, Monica thought as she led David back to the car. After all, Teddy had, according to David's account, gone looking for David when he had been captured by the Flesh Fair hounds.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
"So let me get this straight," said Glover, one of Henry's friends at work, as he sat cross-legged on a work table, having his lunch. "Something that is physically a toy is upset over losing a toy?"  
  
"Yeah, and he's really upset about it," Henry said, checking his email.  
  
"You know, you oughta send a write-up on this to Dr. Hobby," Glover said. "He'd find this really interesting."  
  
"He probably would," Henry agreed. "But I'll send it only after we've found Teddy or we get David a new one."  
  
"I don't think gettin' him a new one would work: doesn't work with regular kids, so I don't think it would with Mecha ones," Glover said. "I mean, I remember going on a car trip with my little cousin when I was twelve and she was, oh, maybe three. She had this pink baby blanket she called Bub, had to take it everywhere, right? Well, we can't find it, so my uncle gives her a dishtowel that was about the same size and color. Sally takes one look at it and she yells, 'THIS IS NOT BUB!!!' Starts cryin' aaalll over again."  
  
"I hear yah," Henry said, making a mental note to call the Haddonfield "Dispatch", one of the town's papers, when he got home, and place a 'lost and found' ad.  
  
On second thought, he reached for the phone with one hand and opened the e-Phone Book on his desktop, looking up the phone number.  
  
"Whatcha doing?" Glover asked.  
  
"I'm calling in a lost and found ad to the paper," Henry said.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
When Martin came home from school, he found David sitting on the front steps, looking down the garden path, expectation in his unblinking blue eyes.  
  
"Hey, David, whatcha doin' out here?" Martin asked.  
  
"I'm waiting for Teddy to come home," David said.  
  
Martin wrinkled his brows. "You think he's gonna come home by himself? I mean, he may be a Supertoy, but that's sooo not gonna happen, bro."  
  
David looked up, puzzled, his lower lip dropping slightly. "Why do you say that?"  
  
"I'm saying it because I'm only tellin' you what could happen."  
  
"But it might not happen. I came home."  
  
"Yeah, but you lucked out 'cause Dr. Hobby was looking for you. Teddy's smaller. Besides, girls go hoopey over stuff like Teddy. I bet some girl found him in the library and took him home."  
  
"Maybe she'll give him back."  
  
"I don't think that's gonna happen either. Even girls my age think Teddies are cute, and I'm gonna be fifteen."  
  
"Do they play with them?"  
  
"Nah, they just like having them."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I dunno. I'll tell yah if I find out."  
  
"But maybe a girl didn't find him. Maybe he's still walking here. He's only little and the library is a long way away from here if you don't have a car."  
  
"Not to bust you up, but I'd forget about Teddy," Martin said. "He's gone."  
  
"But Teddy is my friend," David said, his lower lip starting to tremble. "He has to come back."  
  
"He's just a toy," Martin said, going inside.  
  
David sat on the front steps, looking out over Mommy's flower beds, watching and waiting for the moment when Teddy would come waddling up the flagstone path.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
"You're always letting Effie get into my stuff," Gladys snapped at her mother as she stomped to her room.  
  
"I didn't even know you had that bear," Cara said. "Did Ringo give it to you?"  
  
"No. I found him last night when we were coming home. He was wandering around by himself." Gladys tried to slam her door shut, but her mother, who'd been following her down the hallway, held it open.  
  
"He might belong to somebody," Cara said.  
  
"I don't think so."  
  
"He asked if we knew about someone named David."  
  
Gladys rolled her eyes. "That could be anybody."  
  
"I think we should put an ad in the paper's lost and found section and say we found him," Cara said. "It's the right thing to do."  
  
"But who reads those?" Gladys groaned.  
  
"You'd be suprised," Cara said, going for her datapad to send an email to the Haddonfield "Sentinel", the paper they got.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Meanwhile, Gladys had moved Teddy to her bed while she did her homework. Teddy sat amongst her pillows, watching her.  
  
When the girl's mother called her to supper, Teddy was left alone. Now he could get down and find a way out.  
  
He waddled down the hallway to the living room, where there was a sliding door opening onto the patio. He pried it open and stepped out onto the stone steps there, careful to stop and push the door closed. He clambered down to the ground and headed for the front yard and the sidewalk beyond.  
To be continued...  
Literary Easter Eggs:  
  
The chair in the library--modelled after a chair in the children's library in my hometown.  
  
"Bub"--Based on an actual story I heard; names, genders and relations have been changed. 


	2. Part 2: Found

TITLE: Teddy's Big Adventure, part 2 of 2  
  
AUTHOR: "Matrix Refugee"  
  
RATING: G (My first ever G-rate!)  
  
ARCHIVE: Now that ff.n is being a BEAST, yes!!! (Permission given already)  
  
FEEDBACK: Please, please, pretty please??  
  
SUMMARY: Teddy is lost. What will David do?  
  
DISCLAIMER: Nope, I don't own "A.I.", or else this would be a screen story for a one-hour DreamWorks TV special, maybe at Easter, on HBO. I don't own the lyrics of "Teddy Bears' Picnic", which are public domain, as far as I can tell. Oh, and the cuter (as in less painful) torture Effie exerts on Teddy was inspired by an idea from my friend Twinkle on the "A.I." Role-Playing group on Yahoo!  
  
NOTES: I had a blast with this. Lots of concepts flying around, which should make it appeal both to the more mature elements in us, as well as to our inner "David" or "Darlene". Also, I don't mean to demonize little girls in this one: "Effie" was just based very much on a girl I help babysit. And if you want to make this a multi-media experience, check out the MIDI on this page:   
Especial thanks goes to Ruby T. O'Neil and to Laurie E. Smith for pointing me toward the lyrics. I'm dedicating this fic to you guys, and also to Jack Angel, the incomparable voice of "Teddy".  
  
WARNING: Mild violence, sort of. Not the worst, of course, but it might give Teddy the horrors....but there's enough fuzzies to compensate (and there's a bit of a teaser as well.).  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--   
  
Part Two: Found  
  
  
Monica called David in just before supper. "But Teddy might come when I'm not looking," he said.  
  
"Maybe you could draw a poster we could hang up at the grocery store," Monica said.  
  
David's worried face brightened at this. "Sure, Mommy. You come up with the best ideas." And he bounded off to the sewing room.  
  
"That'll hold the little guy for a while," Martin said, watching this as he did his homework.  
  
  
After dinner, David showed Monica his posters. Each had a brown and tan crayon drawing of Teddy and a message:  
  
'Please send Teddy home to me. I lost him in the Haddonfield Library and I need him back. He has brown fur on most of him and tan fur on his face and tummy. If you find him, please call me at...'  
  
"That's very good, David," Monica said. "Let's take it to the store tomorrow when we go shopping."  
  
"Thank you, Mommy," David said, hugging her.  
  
"You sure it's gonna work?" Martin said, eying it a little puzzled.  
  
"It has our phone number so they can call us when they find him," David said. "And everyone goes to the store, so someone will see it, maybe the person who found Teddy."  
  
"Sounds like a good plan to me," Henry said.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Teddy wasn't sure quite where he was going. He had been switched off when Gladys brought him to her house. So he kept walking, looking for a familiar road he knew led home.  
  
As he trotted along, he passed a house where Effie, the unpleasant little girl was playing, running about in the front yard while her father mowed the lawn. That wasn't safe: she could get hurt. He really had to get home, but she had to be warned as well.  
  
He turned onto the path up to the house and waddled after Effie, across the grass. He caught up with her and put his paw on her leg.  
  
"You will get hurt playing where your daddy is working," Teddy said.  
  
Effie looked down at Teddy. "Oh, it's you! You found me!" she cried. She scooped him up and ran with him into the house. At least this got her away from that dangerous place.  
  
She carried Teddy to her room, clearly a girl's bedroom, with lacy curtains trimmed with pink ribbon, a pink carpet, a lace-trimmed bedspread and pink and white furniture. Lots of dolls sat on the shelves of the cupboards and bookcases, or lay plopped on the floor, some with clothes on, many without.  
  
"Everyone, we gotta new friend!" Effie cried. "This is Teddy!" She plopped Teddy on the bed, in amongst a lot of stuffed animals. "She just walked in."  
  
"I'm a he," Teddy said.  
  
"Well, you'll have to be a girl, 'cause this room is for girls ONLY," Effie said. She ran to a box of doll clothes in a corner and pawed through it, singing something:  
  
"If you go out in the woods today  
You're sure of a big surprise  
If you go out in the woods today  
You'd better go in disguise  
For every bear that ever there was  
Will gather there for certain, because  
Today's the day  
The teddy bears have their picnic  
  
"Picnic time for teddy bears  
The little teddy bears are  
Having a lovely time today  
Watch them, catch them unawares  
And see them picnic on their holiday  
See them gaily gather 'bout  
They love to play and shout  
They never have any cares  
At six o'clock their mommies and daddies  
Will take them home to bed  
Because they're tired little teddy bears!"  
  
Effie drew out a pink tutu covered all over with rainbow spangles and sequins.  
  
Teddy eyed the doll dress as Effie jumped back on the bed. She grabbed Teddy and started to pull the dress onto him. "I think this will fit just right," she said.  
  
"I'm a he," Teddy replied, insistant.  
  
"You're a girl now. You gotta wear a girl outfit," Effie said.  
  
Teddy growled, but there was little he could do. She wasn't hurting him, but he couldn't wriggle away.  
  
"Wanna see yourself?" she said, holding Teddy up to the full-length mirror in the other corner.  
  
Teddy saw his reflection. He growled: he didn't look right.  
  
"Don't growl: you look pretty," Effie said,  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Next day, when David went with Mommy to the store, he brought the posters. Mommy spoke with the store manager, asking her if she'd let them put up the posters.  
  
"Of course," said the store manager. "I had a dog that ran away when I was about your age. But we got him back when we put up posters."  
  
David smiled broadly and looked up at Mommy. "It will work. It has to work."  
  
"I hope it does," she said.  
  
The store manager herself hung up the posters, one near each of the two entrances.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Later that evening, a tall, slender young man with black hair stood before David's poster, reading it, his bright green eyes taking it all in.  
  
"Are you gonna stare at that poster all night or should I do the shopping all by myself?" snapped the shorter man next to him. "Earth to Frank, Earth to Frank."  
  
Frank, the taller man, turned to his friend. "Sorry about that: I just couldn't help noticing that poster."  
  
The shorter man glanced at it. "Kids losing their Supertoys," he grumbled.  
  
"You never lose anything like that, Hal?" Frank asked, leading the way in.  
  
"Never had anything like that to lose," Hal groused, following Frank.  
  
"You poor thing," Frank said. And that poor kid, whoever he is, he thought. There's a story behind this...  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
"It's quite remarkable," Dr. Hobby said, as he spoke with Henry via videophone the next day. "It's beyond remarkable: David developed this kind of attachment on a Supertoy, to the point that he's genuinely worried for it when he lost it. You find that only in young children."  
  
"I know, Martin was like that when he was six," Henry replied, his eye on the photo of Martin, David and Teddy, which he kept on his desk. "He misplaced an action figure, one of his first, and he got a little distraught, but not the way David has with losing Teddy."  
  
"It seems the David line senses emotions stronger than most children," Hobby said. "I'll have to examine David. With your permission of course."  
  
"You can talk with him, but I won't have anyone taking his brain apart," Henry said. He caught himself, concerned that he might have cost himself some trouble by the way he spoke. But Hobby seemed to ignore it.  
  
"That's understood. I only intended to have Dr. Jeanine Salla, our robo-psychologist talk to him," Hobby said, reassuringly.  
  
"Good, he'll be in good hands," Henry said. Dr. Salla had worked with David after the "Blue Fairy incident". "I'll see what we can do after we find Teddy."  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
"Frank, I need a human interest story for Saturday's 'Style'," LeClerck, the chief editor of the Haddonfield "Dispatch" said, standing over Frank's desk in the office of the paper. "I got two empty quarter columns and a space for a photo that need filling for the Saturday edition. Make it interesting."  
  
"How about a nice, gripping, dramatic dog rescue," grumbled Hal, cleaning the contacts of a digital camera, as he sat at the desk that faced Frank's.  
  
"You alreayd did that this winter," LeClerck said. "The readers have heard that before. Just find something you haven't run in the last two months." With that, the boss moved on.  
  
"Okay, what does that leave us?" Hal asked Frank.  
  
Frank picked up a copy of the previous day's paper. "That's a good question." He scanned the columns of the "lost and found" ads.  
  
"Now what's so interesting in yesterday's news?" Hal asked.  
  
"I'm looking in the lost and found," Frank said.  
  
"Hey, that's for people who have lost or found something, you simple simon."  
  
Frank ignored this. In the middle of the second column, something caught his eye:  
  
"Lost and very much needed back: Cybertronics' Teddy, model 351, two tone copper and tan fur. Call Swinton at..."  
  
"Here's something," Frank read the ad aloud. "Swinton, could that be the family with the child Mecha? Looks like it might be the same family that put up that poster I saw last night."  
  
"Oh, here we go again with the Blue Fairy," Hal groaned.  
  
"They're looking for a missing Teddy."  
  
"If they can't keep track of their Mechas, they don't deserve to--"  
  
"Oh hush! They could be completely innocent, so don't go leapfrogging from one conclusion to the next," Frank said, reaching for the handset of his phone. He pressed nine, then dialled the number. The line rang a few times, then it picked up, but there was no answer.  
  
"Hello...this is Frank Sweitz over at the Haddonfield 'Dispatch'. Could I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Swinton?"  
  
He heard some scuffling at the end of the line, a woman's muffled voice telling someone to let her have the phone. Then it cleared.  
  
"Hello, this is Mrs. Swinton," she said.  
  
"I saw your ad in the lost and found section, for the missing Teddy. I think I can help you find him."  
  
"How? Did you see him?"  
  
"Not exactly. But I think I might be able to get this incident more coverage. I mean, right now that little ad is buried in the middle of the lost and found section. But if there were a little more to back it up, someone might be more likely to see it, someone who found him."  
  
"You're telling me you want to...run a story on this?" she asked.  
  
"I'm only proposing it."  
  
"I don't know...David's been through so much, but he really misses Teddy..."  
  
"I know, the 'Blue Fairy incident'. I heard about that, saw the write-ups on it."  
  
"I suppose...could you come tonight when my husband's home?" she asked.  
  
"By all means, of course."  
  
"Would seven o'clock be too late?"  
  
"My time is yours."  
  
"Okay...is there a number I can reach you? I'd like to clear this with Henry first before I say anything definate."  
  
"Sure, sure." He gave her his pager number.  
  
After a few final words, Mrs. Swinton hung up. Frank switched off the phone, took out his palmtop and notated a pending appointment at the Swinton house for that evening.  
  
"Frank Sweitz, heroic reporter," Hal said. "Champion of troubled Mechas, spun sugar to the core."  
  
"Nope, I'm just as mercenary as you are: I'm taking one little Mecha's pain and turning it into copy. But you never know: some good might come of this."  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Monica called Henry at work, telling him about the reporter who called that day. Henry thought it sounded like a good idea if they spoke to him.  
  
"But do you think David can handle it?" Henry asked.  
  
"If he knows it's to help find Teddy, he will," Monica said.  
  
When she got off the phone, Monica called Mr. Sweitz back to tell him he could come to their house at seven that evening.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Before dinner, before she even started cooking, Mommy came into David's room and aat down next to him on his bed.  
  
"Did someone find Teddy?" he asked. "I hear you talk on the telephone."  
  
"No, not yet. But there's a man who wants to help us find Teddy," she said.  
  
"Is he a detective?" David asked.  
  
"No, he writes for the newspaper. He wants to write an article about you and Teddy, and how you're looking for him," she said. "So, he wants to come here and ask you a few things about Teddy."  
  
David thought about this. "Everybody reads newspapers. So someone will see the...article and know about Teddy. If they have him, they can know where to go to give him back."  
  
Mommy smiled at him. "Let's hope they do."  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Right about this time, Effie carried Teddy, or Teddina as she insisted on calling him, carried her friend outside to her playhouse, towing a bunch of other teddy bears--ordinary stuffed ones--in a pink plastic doll carriage. She was still singing the song she'd sung before:  
  
"If you go out in the woods today  
You'd better not go alone  
It's lovely out in the woods today  
But safer to stay at home  
For every bear that ever there was  
Will gather there for certain, because  
Today's the day  
The teddy bears have their picnic.  
  
"That's what we're having just for you," Effie said, pushing Teddy down into a chair at the small table inside the playhouse. "Bet you never had a picnic all for you with other teddy bears."  
  
"I belong to David," Teddy insisted.  
  
Effie plunked the other Teddies into the other chairs. "Well, now you belong to me. You're in for a treat," she said. "This'll be more fun than anything a *boy* ever did with you." She went to a toy refrigerator in the corner, opened it and rummaged about. She took out a box of little frosted chocolate cream cakes. She unwrapped a few and broke them apart. She put the pieces on the plates before the other Teddies, but she put a whole one in front of herself. The other bears watched with still, quiet eyes.  
  
Teddy watched Effie, following her, his ears pricked up. Mommy had sung the song sometimes, but much better than Effie did:   
  
"Every teddy bear, that's been good  
Is sure of a treat today  
There's lots of wonderful things to eat  
And wonderful games to play  
Beneath the trees, where nobody sees  
They'll hide and seek as long as they please  
Today's the day  
The teddy bears have their picnic."  
  
Effie put a whole cake on the plate in front of Teddy. "It's nice having something else that's alive," she said.  
  
"I am *not* alive like you," Teddy said.  
  
"Well, you move around like you're alive," she said, munching on her own cake. She looked at the cake in front of Teddy.   
  
He pushed the plate toward her. "I don't eat."  
  
"Are you just being gruffy?" Effie demanded.  
  
"I don't eat," he insisted.  
  
She picked up the cake before Teddy. "Oh, come on. It's nummy."  
  
"No."  
  
She grabbed Teddy's chin and shoved the cake into his mouth. He tried to wriggle free, but she had a firm grip on him. She worked his chin up and down, mushing the cake. Teddy couldn't taste it of course, but he felt crumbs and cream pushing into the back of his mouth, splocking onto his voice box and down inside him.  
  
Everything went black as his system shut down to protect itself.  
  
Effie shook Teddy. "Hey, stop fooling me. If you didn't like it, say so."  
  
He didn't move.   
  
"DADDY!!!" she screamed.  
  
Effie's father, working in the garage, heard his daughter yell. The cry sounded desperate, so he ran to see what it could be.  
  
He found Effie in her playhouse, with the bear she claimed had 'just' walked into the yard. There was cake smeared on the bear's face, which told him exactly what had happened. Effie was jabbering a blue streak about how they were just having a picnic.  
  
"You should know these things don't eat," he said, taking the bear and carrying it into the garage.  
  
"Can you fix him? Please, Daddy, please!" she begged.  
  
"No, Effie, we'll have to take him someplace to fix him." He put Teddy into a large box and set the box on an upper shelf in his workshop.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
At seven, the doorbell trilled at the Swintons's house. Henry opened the door, letting in two young men, a tall, dark one and a shorter one with a camera slung on a strap about his neck. The short one insisted on being called Hal, but the tall one just wanted to be called Mr. Sweitz.  
  
David hung back, watching from the living room. Martin came up behind him and nudged him forward.  
  
"So you must be David, the young gentleman whose friend Teddy is missing," Mr. Sweitz said.  
  
"Are you the man who wants to help find Teddy?" David asked.  
  
"Yes, I am; I saw the ad your family posted in the paper I work for," Mr. Sweitz said, extending his hand to David, as if he were a grownup. David shook his hand.  
  
Mommy led them into the living room where they could all be more comfortable. David sat next to Mr. Sweitz on the arm of his chair. He asked them several questions about teddy, how long they'd had him, how long he'd been missing, jotting down their answers on a small handheld scriber. Martin hung about, but he was strangely quiet the whole time. The man with the camera took a photo of David. Then Mr. Sweitz turned to him and asked him a few questions.  
  
"David, what would you say to someone if they found Teddy and brought him back to you?" he asked.  
  
"I'd give them a hug and tell them, 'Thank you for bringing him back'," David said.  
  
Mr Sweitz smiled, a pleasant, friendly smile. "That's more than some boys your age would do," he said. David smiled back.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
"Where's My Friend Teddy?" Asks Local Child-Mecha David Swinton  
  
HADDONFIELD--David Swinton, the child-Mecha who, last year, was returned to his adoptive family has a very important question to ask local residents: Has anyone see his Teddy Supertoy? "I was at the library on Tuesday with Mommy and Martin [his older brother]," says the dark-blonde haired and blue-eyed eleven year old, sadly. "We looked for him all over [the library], but we couldn't find him. It's like he disappeared."  
  
David has been extremely lonely since his furry friend vanished. "They're the best of friends," says David's mother, Monica Swinton. "He misses him dreadfully." Adds David's father, Henry Swinton, a longtime employee of Cybertronics, the company which built Teddy, "He takes the little guy everywhere he goes; he's lost without him."  
  
Teddy is about 16 inches tall with two-tone brown fur, dark cream-colored on his face and tummy, copper-brown on the rest of him. A reward of 50 NB is offered by the family to whomever finds Teddy and returns him. For more information, contact the 'Dispatch' at...  
  
Says David to whoever finds his furry friend, "I'd give them a hug and tell them, 'Thank you for bringing him back'."  
  
Beside the item was a photo of David, as well as one of Teddy which Monica had let them use.  
  
"The older brother knows something about it," Hal said, the next morning, as he and Frank sat in the news room, looking over the night's work.  
  
"I had that feeling," Frank said. "But the object right now is finding Teddy. It's Mr. and Mrs. Swinton's territory to handle that part of the problem. They seem like capable enough people."  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Saturday afternoon, Martin stepped into Henry's workshop as his dad was at work carving a set of napkin rings as a wedding present for Mom's cousin Natalie.  
  
"Dad, you ever do something like for a prank and then you felt bad about it?" Martin asked.  
  
"Oh, yeah. Like that time my cousin Rob and I put the firecrackers into Mrs. McDougal's mailbox," Dad said. "We didn't think the mailbox would explode, but it did. Rob got a nasty burn on his hand, too. Why, there something on your mind, Marty?"  
  
"Aw, just wondering," Martin said, kicking a few pebbles around on the driveway before sauntering away.  
  
Henry watched his son curiously. He knew there was something on his older son's mind, but he couldn't tell exactly what it was. He wondered if it just might have something to do with Teddy disappearing.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
That evening, Effie's father saw the article about David and Teddy.  
  
"Did that bear Effie found say anything about it belonging to a boy named David?" he asked his wife.  
  
"I don't remember, but didn't she jam him up? Why do you want to know?" she asked, not following.  
  
He showed her the article. "Oh my, that sounds a lot like the bear Effie found," Effie's mother said.  
  
"I think we better call the paper and see about getting the bear back to the Swintons," Effie's father said.  
  
"But he's broken. We should get him fixed first."  
  
"I'm on it."  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Effie's father found his daughter rummaging in the back of her closet. "What are you looking for?" he asked.  
  
"I"m lookin' for a big shoebox: I'm gonna have a funeral for Teddina," she said.  
  
"You'd better not do that: Teddy has a home he needs to go to," he said.  
  
"But he's broken, I broke him."  
  
"He can probably be fixed.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Monday morning, Effie's father brought Teddy to a repair shop, a "hospital" for broken Supertoys. They had a few orders already being worked on, but the lady who ran the store said she'd fix Teddy herself: she'd seen the item about Teddy and David's poster, so she promised Effie's father she'd have Teddy fixed by that evening.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Just before supper, the phone rang in the Swintons' house, but this time, Monica was a little quicker picking it up before David beat her to it.  
  
"Hello, Swinton house?"  
  
"Hello, Mrs. Swinton? This is Herman Varay; we found what we think is your missing Teddy bear."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yes, he has two tone brown fur, and he's been asking about David. My daughter found him wandering around."  
  
"That's great, would you mind if we came and got him around seven?"  
  
"No, of course not." And he gave Monica his address. "Actually, the sooner you get here, the better. My daughter's gotten extremely attached to him, so I'm hiding him in the garage. I jsut don't know how long it'll take before she finds him."  
  
"We'll be over right at seven," Monica promised.  
  
As soon as she got off the phone, Monica ran to David's room.  
  
"David, someone found Teddy," she said.  
  
He jumped up from the bed where he had been reading "Pinocchio", his favorite book (even if it wasn't real), and ran to Monica. "Really? Can we go get him? Are they coming to bring him here?"  
  
"We're going to get him after dinner," she said.  
  
Martin stood in the doorway listening to this and looking a little forlorn.  
  
"Something the matter, Martin?" Monica asked.  
  
"Yeah, I, uh...I'm sorry...I hid Teddy in the library. I started all this," Martin admitted.  
  
"Well....at least you apologized for it," Monica said. "But I'm going to have to talk to your father about this."  
  
"You can take the reward money out of my allowance," Martin said, a little reluctant, but honest.  
  
"That sounds like a good idea," Monica said.  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Effie's father met them in the garage of his house, where he took a large box down from a shigh shelf.  
  
"I'd let you into the house, but I had to keep Teddy away from Effie," he said. He leaned down to David and held the box down to him. David lifted the lid and looked inside.  
  
Teddy stuck his head out of the box, gripping the sides with his paws. He looked up at David.  
  
"Hello, David," he said.  
  
David reached in and pulled Teddy out. He hugged his friend as if he'd never let him go. But he put Teddy down on the ground and reached up his arms to Mr. Varay. "May I hug you?"  
  
"Well, uh, sure," the man said, sheepishly. He leaned down to David's level and let the little one put his arms about his neck. He put a slightly nervous arm about David, then let him go.  
  
To Monica, Mr. Varay added, "Is it true?"  
  
"Is what true?"  
  
Mr. Varay looked from David to Teddy. "He's like the bear."  
  
"That's just the way he came," Monica said. "He's got a heart like the rest of us."  
  
@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--@--'--  
  
Henry called the "Dispatch" the next day and asked them to pull the ad he'd placed. And he also told Mr. Sweitz the good news, and to ask if he'd be interested in a follow-up to his original story.  
  
"I just wanted to do something to help," Mr. Sweitz said, later, when he came to the Swintons' house. "It was David's poster that got me curious, then I saw your ad in the paper."  
  
"Good thing we thought to do all that," Henry said.  
  
"You all pitched in to set it in motion," Mr. Sweitz said.  
  
David got up from the couch, set Teddy aside, went up to the chair where Mr. Sweitz sat, crawled into his lap and hugged him. "Now what's this for?" the reporter asked.  
  
"Because you helped me find Teddy," David said.  
  
"Just doin' my job," Mr. Sweitz said.  
  
Teddy climbed up onto David's lap. At that moment, Hal the photographer snapped a photograph of them.  
  
"Just what we need, a happy ending," Martin said, pretending to be annoyed.  
  
David smiled at Martin. "Aren't they the best kind?"  
  
"I think so," Teddy said.  
  
  
The End  
. 


End file.
